Most common nail clippers comprise upper and lower mandibles, which are connected together at one end and at their opposite ends the mandibles have opposed facing jaws having sharpened cutting edges. The mandibles are generally manufactured from spring steel or the like and are slightly divergent from each other from their point of connection, at one end, to the cutting edges at the other. The mandibles are apertured near the cutting edges to accept a rotatable hinge post, which is disposed generally at right angles to the cutting edges.
An operating lever is secured to the hinge post and has an upstanding cam surface formed thereon, adjacent to the hinge post. The operating lever may be elevated and rotated from a position nested adjacent the upper mandible to an inverted position in vertical alignment above the upper mandible with the cam surface rotated so as to be brought in engagement with exposed face of the upper mandible. Through pressure on the operating lever, the cam surface on the operating lever forces the upper mandible into contact with the lower mandible to thereby clip a nail positioned therebetween.
A shortcoming of this design is the difficulty of securely gripping the nail clipper so as to firmly and accurately position the clipper adjacent a nail so as to position and maintain the nail between the jaws without shearing while applying sufficient pressure on the operating lever to close the jaws to cut the nail. Where there is a sufficient size difference between the clipper and the operators hand, or where the hand of the operator suffers an injury or illness which limits the force or accuracy which the force may be applied to the operating lever, or where the operator's hands are slippery from water, soap or toiletry products, operation of the clipper may be difficult.
To overcome this difficulty, the nail clipper of the present invention has a first finger loop solidly mounted to or formed as part of the lower mandible. A second finger loop is similarly mounted to or formed as part of the operating lever. This permits the clipper to be conveniently and accurately positioned and maintained adjacent to a nail to perform a manicure operation with the clipper. The use of finger loops on nail clippers are however known in the prior art. Examples are illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,997,966 to Sartore and in U.S. Pat. No. 5,384,960 to Tottenham. However, in the nail clipper of Sartore, when the nail clipper is folded to its non-clipping aspect the looped handles are brought into alignment and project outwardly from the lower mandible and operating lever respectively, making storage awkward. In the device of Tottenham, the finger loops are ring members rotatably mounted to the mandibles, at their commonly mounted ends, and to the operating lever. The rings fold over for storage, and are free to also unstably fold over during use, thus making them more difficult to use.
What is not taught or suggested, and which is one object of the present invention to provide, is a nail clipper having first and second finger loops rigidly mounted to the mandibles and the rotatable operating lever respectively, so as to permit the nail clipper to be conveniently and accurately positioned and maintained adjacent to a nail to be cut, with the clipper positioned either outwardly of the hand, that is in alignment with the extended fingers, or inwardly of the hand, that is generally toward the palm of the hand, where the first finger loop nests snugly adjacent to and in parallel alignment with the second finger loop when the operating lever is in its storage or closed position.